brisbanetimes.com.au sports editor

"If someone came near me with a needle I'd be running the opposite way": Melanie Schlanger. Photo: Getty Images

Following the Australian swimming orientation camp in April, after the national selection trials, swimmers were told to ready themselves for a flu shot. With Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacs as part of a hectic schedule, falling ill was the last thing they needed.

Before a needle went anywhere near her arm, freestyler Melanie Schlanger took the label, read the ingredients and checked them off on the ASADA website, which provides athletes with information surrounding banned substances.

Even with the doctor giving her the all clear, Schlanger followed the most basic rule of elite sport when it comes to putting things in your body: Trust nobody. It's a mantra that has been drilled into Olympic gold medallist since she was a teenager, as it has been with virtually all of Australia's Olympic athletes.

Which is why the 27-year-old has been at the vanguard of reactions from other sports after punishments were handed down following the Cronulla Sharks doping scandal.

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A retrospective suspension agreed to on Friday will mean 10 current NRL players will miss as little as three rounds of the season despite having to make admissions about their role in the club's supplements program three years ago, which included peptide injections.

It is a deal that has left athletes like Schlanger, whose career lives and dies by the strict anti-doping code, stunned and mystified. The suspensions, she said, were a sad day for sport in Australia and a terrible example for young athletes.

"If someone came near me with a needle I'd be running the opposite way," Schlanger said from the Pan Pacs meet on the Gold Coast. "We had a flu shot after the orientation camp. I took the lid off the bottle first, checked it online and made sure it was all good before I even got my flu shot.

"It's just something I've always done and I think every other athlete is the same on our team. We know 100 per cent what we can and can't take. The doctor was there telling us this is a flu shot but you have to make sure and be able to rest easy. For me, anything that goes anywhere near me will be 100 per cent clean."

Sharks players have painted themselves as victims of a systemic doping regime at the club, saying they were duped by officials and told everything was above board. And while luminaries like Wayne Bennett have pointed the finger at former Sharks coach Shane Flanagan, the ignorance excuse doesn't fly for Schlanger and a host of athletes outside of the rugby league bubble.

"It's just disappointing. As elite-level Olympic athletes, it's such a huge part of our performance. We check cold and flu tablets. We can't take anything without making sure it's 100 per cent legal, whether someone tells us it's ok or not. It's on us, since I very first started swimming as a teenager," Schlanger said.

She said the punishments handed down had seemingly made it clear that there was one rule for athletes competing in cashed-up sports like rugby league and one rule for everybody else.

"I think the 12-month bans are applicable but probably not backdated. It's a different set of rules for the sports that bring in the big money and are on TV I guess. It just makes me a little bit sad for sport in general. It's about playing fair. It's about community, young kids. It sets such a bad example for them," Schlanger said.

The result of the suspensions, Schlanger said, had now clouded over the rules surrounding who is ultimately responsible in a doping case. She said ASADA had drilled Australia's swimmers relentlessly about taking responsibility but this stance could now be questioned.

"We sit through so many meetings every year; we have to sign off on all sorts of educational seminars. That's just so the accountability is on us as athletes. When a doping case comes forward like that - and the athletes aren't accountable - it goes against everything we've learnt. It's strange from an athlete's point of view," she said.

While those within rugby league, from the top down, seem to be strangely silent and accepting of the bans, Schlanger represents a large section of the Australian sporting community that clearly feels let down and confused by the result of the prolonged investigation.

The reality is that if Schlanger or any other member of the Australian swimming team tested positive for a banned substance - accidental or not - there's little to no chance they would be given the same kind of latitude afforded to NRL players.

"I really hope not (it doesn't set a new precedent). It's dangerous territory though. But I hope not," she said.

55 comments so far

Agree totally with the "amateur" sportspeople and note this applies equally to the media approach to breaches (including alleged breaches).

Commenter

Bernie

Date and time

August 23, 2014, 8:18AM

I wonder just how many members of this years NSW and Q'ld State of Origin squads could be involved.

Commenter

Bernie Gee

Date and time

August 23, 2014, 8:31AM

That NSW should hand the trophy back and we declare QLD the series winner?

Commenter

Does Ir Mean

Location

Sydney

Date and time

August 23, 2014, 10:14AM

What utter garbage - by my count only ONE NSW Blue was involved in this issue AND it all back dates to Feb/March 2011. Since Qld one the 2011 series the substances must have really been a help.In the most recent series - 2014 - ALL players were regularly being tested and ALL passed these tests.

Commenter

saint mike II

Location

Kiama Downs

Date and time

August 23, 2014, 10:43AM

All of them. Then start looking around at the other NRL clubs. If Cronulla is doing it then so is everyone else in league. The whole drug cheat thing is a joke.

Players will plead guilty be given a sentence by the NRL Judiciary which means they'll probably have to mow the HQ front lawn then back into it again.

NRL is just the pits. They get away with everything whilst the poor bloddy swimmers and athletes cop it.

Commenter

Jim

Date and time

August 23, 2014, 3:45PM

The State of Origin 2014 should be null and void due to Drug CheatsLike all sports accross the world- medals, trophies, awards , sponsorship monies, achievements should be given back and cheats be punished.

Commenter

State of Origin Drug Cheats

Date and time

August 23, 2014, 6:58PM

Come on Melanie.......

You are elite athletes competing constantly against the best in the world. The league players are running around their own backyards for six months of the year.

Thats why the disparity...its not about the popularity and therefore the money.

Commenter

jack5611

Location

Sydney

Date and time

August 23, 2014, 8:32AM

It's completely about the money.

A non elite amateur athlete, who also competes only in their own backyard can be tested, and then also banned like the elite international athletes.

Australia has this perception that our football players, who get paid well (for what they do) should be excused when they make poor decisions that get them in trouble. We wouldn't accept it from any other sports person, but when it's footballers its different.

Commenter

Les

Date and time

August 23, 2014, 9:58AM

@ jack5611

Thanks for that... as I didn't realise there was different degrees of cheating... as in regards to your comments on international and domestic cheating. I had always thought it was just cheating and that cheating didn't have boundaries... silly poor old me, eh ?

Commenter

Machooka

Location

inner west sydney

Date and time

August 23, 2014, 10:18AM

You are kidding aren't you Jack?? Surely you aren't serious. Schlanger is on the money. Its a disgrace to sport what has happened at Cronulla and soon to be at Essendon now the precedent has been set.